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Tag Archive for 'genomics'

This guest post was contributed by Karol Estrada, a postdoctoral research fellow in the Analytic and Translational Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. It is dedicated to the memory of Laura Riba.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of common variants have successfully implicated more than 70 genomic regions in type 2 diabetes, revealing new biological pathways and potential drug targets. However, most large studies have examined genetic variation only in northwestern European populations, despite the rich genetic diversity in other populations around the world. Most studies have also been limited in their ability to detect variants present in fewer than 5 percent of people. Much remains to be learned.

In this post, we discuss our new paper, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, on a low-frequency missense variant in the gene HNF1A that raises risk of type 2 diabetes five-fold, and was seen only in Latinos. This variant was the only rare variant to reach genome-wide significance in an exome sequencing study of almost 4,000 people, the largest such study to date. We explain the ramifications for sample sizes of rare-variant studies, note the importance of studying populations outside of northwestern Europe, and caution against simplistic dichotomous interpretations of disease as either complex or monogenic. Finally, we note that a low-frequency or rare variant might guide therapeutic modification.Continue reading ‘A rare variant in Mexico with far-reaching implications’

The ENCODE Project has this week released the results of its massive foray into exploring the function of the non-protein-coding regions of the human genome. This is a tremendous scientific achievement, and is receiving plenty of well-deserved press coverage; for particularly thorough summaries see Ed Yong’s excellent post at Discover and Brendan Maher at Nature.

I’m not going to spend time here recounting the project’s scientific merit – suffice it to say that the project’s analyses have already improved the way researchers are approaching the analysis of potential disease-causing genetic variants in non-coding regions, and will have an even greater impact over time. Instead, I want to highlight what a tremendous feat of scientific publication the project has achieved.Continue reading ‘The ENCODE project: lessons for scientific publication’

As the previous posts from Clive Brown and Adam Rutherford have indicated, there has long been enormous hype and hope surrounding the human genome project and the prospect of a $1000 genome. But what do these developments really mean for the general public? What do we need to know – either as individuals or as health care providers – before we can decide whether it’s worth having a genome sequenced?

Before starting to unpick some of the issues involved in the responsible and effective use of personal genome sequences, it’s worth reviewing how, where and why someone might actually have their genome sequenced. There are currently essentially three different and nonequivalent contexts in which an individual could have their genome sequenced:Continue reading ‘Responsible and effective use of personal genomes’